Microsoft has sold only 674,000 Windows Phone 7 (WP7) devices in the first six weeks of availability, this is according to a report published by Russian tech blogger Eldar Murtazin and reported on PCMag.com.

Murtazin is the analyst credited with predicting the Nokia-Microsoft merger as far back as December 2010, and this recent report suggests that WP7 devices are not as popular as Microsoft’s public claims would suggest.

Murtazin collected sales data from operators and retailers for the period of November and December 2010 and, after subtracting the numbers of phones that Microsoft gave to it’s employees, the “catastrophic” figure of 674,000 units sold is the clear result.

“Failure? Definitely yes. Unfortunately, in spite of the ecosystem, developer support, Microsoft could not create a product that would be attractive to the consumer,” Murtazin wrote in a blog post (Google translated).

This figure is in stark contrast to the 1.5 million handsets which Microsoft claims to have sold in the same period. PCMag analyst Sascha Segan later clarified that when Microsoft says “sold” it really means “sent to carriers or licensed by manufacturers.”